


Danseuse and Partner

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Flesh and Bone (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Chocolate Box Exchange 2018, F/M, Family, Incest, Introspection, Pre-Canon, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 09:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13431864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Claire is in love with ballet. Sometimes Bryan is too. Always, he is in love with Claire.





	Danseuse and Partner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).



Claire’s ballet was an artifact of another time. She started when Mom was still alive. Mom wanted Claire and Bryan to be “more involved with the community”, insisted they did all kinds of things. So Bryan was in Little League baseball even though he was terrible at it and Claire was in ballet and turned out to be surprisingly good at it. They also both tried art classes, ultimate Frisbee, all kinds of things. They were very busy elementary schoolers. Then Mom died and Dad gave up on making them do things. He’d never seen the point of it in the first place.

So Bryan dropped baseball and art class and Frisbee and tried to get good grades at school and hang out with friends as much as possible. But Claire stubbornly refused to stop taking ballet classes. They had the money, and she could always get herself to practice somehow—carpooling mostly, as she was able to make friends easily back then, much more easily than Bryan. She was charismatic even though she was quiet, and definitely the best ballet dancer in the area. Everyone wanted to be friends with the big talent.

Dad even approved of Claire’s ballet, to a point. He approved of it enough that although he didn’t go to performances he would nod and smile when she said they went well, and he would ask Bryan why he couldn’t do something with himself like that.

Bryan could have resented Claire’s ballet. He could have made fun of it, laughed at how much importance she placed on something everyone associated with pink tutus and princesses and fairies. He didn’t, though, because unlike Dad he’d actually seen her dance.

Ballet. It was really too snobby a thing for him to like. On his own, he didn’t particularly enjoy classical music, and he’d never been one to watch VHS tapes of the Nutcracker even though Claire would click them into the VCR even during the summer to admire her favorite performers. But when he saw how Claire danced in recitals, body flowing with the music and yet perfectly stiff at the same time, tight and loose simultaneously, he could not help but long for it. For her. Her leotards showed every muscle and curve of her body, and he was mesmerized by how she moved.

He wanted it. He wanted her. He wanted some odd combination of Claire and ballet—to be able to uplift himself as she did, maybe, or to be loved by her as she obsessively adored her art. Or perhaps to just be untouchable and perfect as she was, just for a little while.

* * *

Having sex with Claire was not like dancing with her.

It was less, Bryan thought, than the immersion she must feel when she danced, less than the partnership she had with the men who lifted her effortlessly into the air and spun her and dipped her and caressed her with grace, art, precision. This was not an art, really. There was little technique to it and less grace. It was just the two of them squirming and bending, rabid and desperate for satisfaction, Claire as awkward about it as he was. She was not the untouchable artist here—she blushed, she moaned, she gasped, she broke for him.

He felt a little smug over being able to break through her façade, which these days she wore even at home and at school, constantly a woman made of ice who wanted and needed nothing. Still, it was not the same as he used to picture. (For he had pictured it long before the dream became reality.)

Being with Claire like this was not like dancing with her. He did not feel the same rapture. It was a release of a much more grounded, visceral kind.

But there was still something about it that felt like a dream. It was still somewhat unreal to him that he could reach out and cup her hips in his hand and she would lean into him automatically, as if it were a move she had practiced again and again until it was habit. Unreal that she would sometimes kiss him with a little laugh on her lips, giddy with joy at their secret closeness. It felt pure and good to be with Claire. He felt…more. More than he was without her, more than he perhaps was meant to be.

He would always remember the first time he was careless enough to sleep the night in her room, in her bed, exhausted from a long day and unable to force himself out from under her covers, away from the warmth of her body. He woke up early to the sound of her alarm. She hit snooze, grumbled, and went back to sleep. But he lay there stiffly, wide awake, gazing at the posters on her wall. All the pretty ballerinas and the advertisements and articles about shows neither of them had ever seen. He’d seen them before but never from this angle. Was this what it was like to be Claire, to surround oneself with what one loved, to own for oneself at least one small haven of enchantment?

In that moment he was the beautiful ballet dancer as well, the prince worthy of dancing beside her.

* * *

“It’s beautiful,” Claire said, fingering the ballerina ornament. It was made of glass, supremely delicate. Reminded Bryan of how Claire looked onstage, as if she might shatter at a single wrong movement.

“It made me think of you.”

Claire smiled, awkwardly wide. She put it down on her bedside table. It was late at night—Christmas, so Dad had stayed up later than usual. They had given each other presents earlier, but this one was a little extra.

She said, “It’s just too bad we don’t have a tree this year.”

(They hardly ever had a tree.)

“I thought you could keep it in here. It’s kind of a private gift.” Bryan shrugged. He didn’t want Dad to see it, but he also didn’t want to say that. It was embarrassing—something like this didn’t need to be a secret. It wasn’t even romantic, certainly wasn’t sexual. Nothing they needed to hide. But he still didn’t want Dad to see it.

Claire nodded. “Okay.” She didn’t ask any other questions. Just leaned it up against her lamp. She wouldn’t need to hide it in a drawer. Dad never came in here, or in Bryan’s room for that matter. They were still always careful, but he hardly cared what they did.

They kissed, soft on each other’s lips. Then Claire kissed a little harder. She leaned back. “I don’t have anything else for you.”

“That’s okay.” His hands were on her thighs now, hoping he had read the insinuation in her comment right. “Merry Christmas.”

And he was right. She grasped his waist and pulled him closer, and he let himself fall into her, a tangle of messy, uncontrolled limbs, imperfect but still ready, primed for the beginning of another song.

**Author's Note:**

> To my recipient: I'd never watched Flesh and Bone (we matched on something else) but reading your prompt made me curious so I gave it a try. Definitely a lot of tension! I hope my fic is satisfying to you, as it's probably a bit more character study than plot or anything substantial. (Also it somehow evolved into a Christmas fic even though it's for Valentine's Day.)  
> I enjoyed your prompts :)


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